Back to school checklists for parents to help ease the chaos

We know. We feel your pain. Back to school is a time for joy (that moment of peace), sadness (those moments of peace again!) and chaos (the far from moments of peace while you try and remember where you put everything just after the holidays started. Whether it is just a week off, or the whole of the summer holidays, we have the answer for you: a back to school checklist for parents that you can print our today and make sure you have everything ready for the kids.

Alternatively, give the checklist to them to tick off, and put your feet up with a cuppa 🤣

We have organised the checklist into different type of supplies to help give you a little more focus. So:

• School supplies,
  • School bag,
  • Pencils,
  • Erasers,
  • Pencil sharpener,
  • Crayons,
  • Notebook,
  • Envelope with art supplies.
• Lunch,
  • Lunch box,
  • Water bottle, and
  • Eating utensils.
• Emergency,
  • Extra shirt,
  • Hygiene kit, and
  • Cash.
• Other,
  • Hand sanitizer,
  • School ID, and
  • Handkerchief.

There are also two lines for you to add your own details if you want to as well.

What does the back to school checklist look like?

In order to help you, we have created two versions, one with less colours, so that you can print it out more easily. The second one above works better in black & white if you don’t have a colour printer as well.

Back to school, and starting school, can cause anxiety in both ourselves and our children. A checklist in preparation might seem like a little thing, but actually it can have a big effect on anxiety. It helps kids:

• To focus on the practical aspects of returning to school, rather than dwelling on their emotions. Obviously, it is important to talk about how they are feeling, but focusing on negative emotions too much can be unhelpful, so turning to practical, and positive ways to get ready for school can be a useful distraction,
• To think about ways they can control their first day back, or indeed their first day. One way is, of course, making sure that they have everything ready; and this list with definitely help with that,
• Get ready the night before! This alleviates the stress of rushing about on the morning, so they can just focus on getting dressed, and fed before they go out the door on the school run, and
• Have a little fun – the list is bright, bubbly and bouncy, so why not create a bit of fun with the list:
  • Do it with your child, and see who can get the first three things, and then the next three the fastest!
  • Just see if you can complete your checklist inside a certain timeframe, or even
  • When it’s completed give them a little reward, like an extra book at bedtime, or a bigger hug *if that’s possible!*

Whatever you decide to do with your list, we hope you have fun printing it out, and using it to make back to school that little bit easier, and slightly calmer than it typically is.

To download the printable, just click on the button below, and it is yours! As always we have this in PDF form.

We do have another checklist for school on site as well – so if this isn’t 100% what you are looking for, why not take a look at that one instead?

In fact, we do have quite a few checklists on the site generally, so take a look at these as well:

Here are some more back to school ideas from the internet as well:

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Thanks as always for coming to see us, and we really hope that we see you again soon.

Take care,

Helen

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